Unfortunately for Jets fans, the team has failed to be taken seriously for decades.
Over the last 20 years, they’ve had six winning seasons. Their last winning season came in 2015 when Todd Bowles was their first-year head coach (they went 10-6).
But then the organization, and former GM Mike Maccagnan, annihilated his chances of continuing that success in 2016 by cutting multiple veterans and drafting players that are no longer even with the team.
His two best picks, safeties Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye, moved on. Failed quarterback experiments in Bryce Petty, Christian Hackenberg and Sam Darnold brought more jokes and disdain than they did victories.
Long gone are Maccagan and Bowles, the latter rather unfairly as he was hampered by the former’s poor decisions and drafting ineptitude.
But after a few key trades and drafting players like Quinnen Williams, Mekhi Becton and Zach Wilson, the Jets amassed a nucleus of talent capable of reducing the stain of their losing ways.
All they needed was a leader to bring them together.
Enter Robert Saleh.
The former 49ers defensive coordinator cultivated San Francisco’s defense into a formidable unit and the hope was he would do the same in New York.
Year one in New York was painful. The team went 4-13, a rough welcome for the first Muslim American head coach in NFL history and a coach that was used to winning in the Bay.
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